This morning was my adult morning. I sat down with my cup of tea and started doing finances, figuring out budgets and all that stuff. It was an interesting feeling
Saturday, we took a trip to Castello di Verrazzano, Verrazzano means the family of the wild boars of the forest. On the way there I saw two girls, they looked in their late twenties in dresses that I wouldn't wear to Hattaz at 2 am. It was such a juxtaposition, the girls dressed up in their club gear, walking down a country road with one house every five miles. They were hitchhiking their way to who knows where. I was shocked, I didn't know a) that people still hitchhiked and b) that hookers came out in the day. I kinda figured it was like the whole vampire thing, they only come out at night, they sparkle (their shoes, bags, dresses shirts everything is sequins and glitter) and their skin is cold (from standing on the corner all night). It kinda blew my mind to see them out in the day light.
Please refer back to my previous post about mosquito bites. Aaaaaand continue. I spoke too soon. I woke up this morning with three mosquito bites on my face. Two on my left cheek next to my eye, and one IN MY EYE LID. Can I just say. It was THE most uncomfortable bug bite I ever had, and I had some gnarly ones. But this one.... This one..... Felt like I had sand in my eye every time I blinked. It was really hard to pay attention to my tour guide when my eye feels like its on fire. Arghhhh.
The wine tour was phenomenal, we learned about how they process classic Chianti wine and the different restrictions on what can and can't be call Chianti. Chianti is a region, so only wine produced by the special method in this region can be called Chianti. We tried two different red's, a pink wine and a desert wine to dunk my fresh made biscotti in. They gave us wines to pair with different dishes for lunch. It was a great trip and I really enjoyed it. The bus home was sooo quiet because of the wine and full bellies I guarantee that the majority of the bus fell asleep.
I finally went for my walk to the Basilica San Minato al Monte, I don't know why it took me so long to get there. I had originally set out with my workout playlist as my soundtrack for the walk, but very shortly it became apparent that this walk was a little more contemplative than I had anticipated.
It was a sunny warm September day that felt more like summer than fall, I loved the way the sun felt on my hair and the wind in my face. It was a particularly glorious day to just be alive and outside. I walked along the Arno, watching a pair of skullers row across the river, with twinges of envy. I started to go down memory lane with thoughts that I started verging on pity Party Lane: things I should have done, things I could have done and paths I could have taken but then morphed into Just Live You Life Street at the cross section of Dont Look Back Ave. And then passed a shop. It is quiet an extraordinary shop of its own right, owned by an Italian master goldsmith who designs and creates jewelry and sculptures. I must have passed that shop a hundred times four years ago, when I first came to Italy, and never once stepped inside. Not because I didn't have time, or wasn't interested in what I saw in the window, I just for whatever reason never went in. I have been taking those opportunities that I missed the first time around, going in the shops, asking the questions I never asked.
When I got up to the top of the hill and I reached piazza Michaelangelo and saw tuns of vendors and tourists buying souvenirs and I thought about what tourism is. If everyone keeps going to different places and desperately trying to bring a piece of that place back, eventually what will be left of that place? Everyone will have taken bits of it until there is nothing left but the foundation.
I finally reached the top and wandered around the monastery, funny story the priests there drive Acura's and have cell phones. Who knew?
I had to do a glamour shot. Four years apart.... Still taking MySpace photos like it was 2000. Yeah. That's me!
I find myself encountering many situations of things I wished I did but never did, like sitting on the ledge with a forty foot drop or jumping onto the buttress of the bridge. Now I am doing all those things and man it feels good. I just want to shake four-years-ago me and tell her "your awesome but you can be this AWESOME sooner! Just do what I am doing now!!" But life doesn't work like that, you just have to live the best way you know how, and I wouldn't be who I am today or maybe even where I am today if I wasn't the exactly the way I was/am/will be.
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